Help Keep One Of The Best Science Fiction Sites Running!

[Troy McClure voice on]
Hi! I’m Ferrett Steinmetz.  You might remember me from such audio productions as:

• “‘Run,’ Bakri Says,” over at Escape Pod
• “Devour,” also at Escape Pod
• “Dead Merchandise,” even also at Escape Pod
• “Riding Atlas,” at Pseudopod
• “As Below, So Above,” at PodCastle
• “A Window, Clear As A Mirror,” at PodCastle
• “The Sound of Gears,” at Pseudopod
• “Suicide Notes, Written By An Alien Mind,” at Pseudopod

…if you can’t tell, I love audio productions of my stories.  I was raised on old-time radio, sitting huddled next to cassette tapes while I heard Arch Oboler’s Lights Out (fear the Chicken Heart) and Inner Sanctum and Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds.  There’s something magical about turning out the lights and letting someone tell you the story.  That first sentence, the surety of the narrator, the having someone take ink on paper and transform it into rhythm and pitch… a good narrator can take you swirling into the depths of a story, slowing down when you’re breathless, punching holes in your heart with a perfect delivery.
And the ‘Pod network has delivered on my stories, time and time again.  They’ve carried my voice as an author out to thousands of people, doing my stories more justice than I could have with my reedy, untrained pipes, taking slender ideas from my head and transforming them into mythology.
‘Pod stories have heft.  They have heart.  And they choose wisely.
And they’re in trouble.
Basically, they’ve gotten so popular that bandwidth has outstripped their donations – a problem some would say they’re lucky to have, but that’s hard to justify when their money’s going to web servers and not the artists.  Unless they get some help, they’re going to be dead in two months.  And to keep themselves alive, they are reminding you that hey, these stories cost cash, and they need some donations.
You can read all about it here.  As for me, I immediately turned around and donated a hefty chunk of cash.  Short fiction’s a tough gig for publishers, and the Pods have published some magnificent stories in their time, and I don’t want to see them strangled by their own success.  You can donate here, if you have the cash – any amount helps.  (Scroll down a bit and click the “Donate” button on the right-hand side.) 
These guys do good work.  They’ve bettered themselves, time and again.  And this isn’t the thrash of a market that hasn’t worked out, it’s the growing pains of something that’s worked maybe a little too well… and I myself would like to watch them accelerate past this awkward adolescence and into the next stage of magnificence.
They’re good.  Give whatcha can.